You might have watched the BBC Panorama programme a couple of nights ago about how the incidences of conditions like Autism and ADHD seem to be increasing quite rapidly, and how many more school children now have Special Educational Needs than they did just ten or twenty years ago. Of course I was very interested in it, but was in two minds about commenting on it here: I know as much about what is causing this increase as anyone else. I would, however, just like to pose once fairly obvious question on here: How does this surge in neurological conditions compare with the incidences of more physical conditions? I would be interested to see whether the rates of physical disabilities like cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy have also increased, or stayed the same. That would at least give us a sort of control or comparison.

I may be being too simplistic, but I can’t help suspecting that this upsurge has a prominent social or cultural aspect which physical disabilities won’t have, given their obvious, unambiguous physical causes. Thus a similar increase in the incidence of conditions like CP would presumably help to rule the possible cultural dimension out. Without such a control and comparable increase, I’m afraid my suspicion that this trend in people purporting to have neurological conditions is just that – a sociocultural trend – will not be going anywhere. As I have said here before, I know autism is a profoundly debilitating disability; yet these days more and more people are said to have it, and in fact it has become quite common. That can’t fail to strike me as extremely odd, especially if the prevalences of other conditions aren’t going up as well.